The Bad Boy of Redemption Ranch - Maisey Yates Page 0,15
the getup she was wearing now, and he found himself drawn to her anyway.
Was that what was happening? Was this the adult equivalent of pulling a girl’s pigtails?
Yeah. Actually, as he stood there and looked at her, he thought she made a pretty neat little package. And he couldn’t deny that part of him thought it would be pretty hot to strip that uniform off her body and put her up against the side of his illegally parked truck.
That was something deeply psychological. The fact that he wanted to quite literally fuck the police.
Was he that basic?
Hell. That wasn’t a huge surprise. He’d tried to domesticate himself, he really had. He’d thought that was the key to life. The answer to everything. And his ass had landed in prison.
He didn’t much care anymore if there was only a thin line between him and a beast.
But the thing that set him apart from the animals was that he wasn’t going to act on his impulse. He could have sex with any number of women, and he didn’t need it to be this one surly pain in his rear. And gazing at her particularly angry face told him that she wouldn’t want to get involved with him either way.
She wrote her ticket and shoved it in his direction. He took it, then touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, the ticket held between his fingers. “Thank you kindly,” he said.
“You know how you could avoid this?” she asked.
“Move to another town?”
“Park literally anywhere else on the street and observe the time allowed for parking on the sign.”
“Aw, well, thank you for that, officer. I will bear that in mind.”
And somehow he knew he wouldn’t. There he was, a grown man going toe-to-toe with a woman who came midway up his chest, essentially acting like she was being an asshole while he’d made the choice to park in the wrong place.
Her radio went off and she jolted, turning her head and answering the call.
There were codes that came out over the speaker that he didn’t understand, and her dark eyebrows shot upward. “Really? Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Got a code nine from dispatch?” he asked. “What is that? A cat in a tree?”
“You call the fire department for that,” she said, dryly. “Someone broke in to a car. I’m as surprised as you are. But sadly, that means I have to cut this short. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
“Sure you will.” He waved her off with the ticket in his hand still.
Then he got in his truck and shoved it in the glove box along with the other ticket she had written him. And he headed off toward home. Then, he pulled over to the side of the road and did a U-turn, taking his way back into town. She wanted all the things in her house fixed. And he had been intent on calling someone to handle it. But he had time. More than enough time. So there was just no reason he couldn’t handle Officer Pansy Daniels’s list himself. All he had to do was go and buy some supplies.
* * *
“TECHNICALLY IT WASN’T a break-in,” Pansy said, making a note on her pad.
“It was,” Barbara Niedermayer said, her expression fierce. “Someone got into my car, unauthorized, and stole my wallet out of it.”
“Yes, but your car wasn’t locked.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes,” Pansy said. “I mean, it’s still theft. Make no mistake. They’ll be charged. It’s just...semantics.” The truth. Which mattered to Pansy.
“Semantics that will matter to the insurance company,” Barbara said.
“No doubt,” said Pansy.
Which was the real issue, she imagined.
The woman looked at her expectantly. Barbara Niedermayer was on the City Council, and the fact that it was her car that had been not broken in to was extremely inconvenient as far as Pansy was concerned. It could also be convenient, granted. Provided she could find the person who had stolen Barbara’s wallet. And if anybody tried to use a card around here with her name on it, it definitely would be. But...the pressure that would be put on her until then, and the problems that would result if she didn’t manage to find the culprit, wouldn’t even be worth mentioning.
“Did you have any credit cards in the wallet?”
“Yes,” Barbara said.
“And your ID.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Cash?” Pansy asked.
“About $500,” the other woman said, clipped. “I do that envelope method.”
Pansy gritted her teeth. “Great. Unfortunately, that is going to be more difficult to...recover.”